Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility enforcement/Evidence

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Evidence presented by Mkativerata
My evidence focuses on the actions of.

Hawkeye re-blocked Malleus Fatuorum when involved
About 4 hours before blocking Malleus, Hawkeye made the following contributions to the ANI thread: Diffs 1 and 5 demonstrate direct involvement in the dispute. Hawkeye supported blocking Malleus and opposed his unblock. He then cited the purported 'consensus' at ANI, in a discussion in which he took part, as a reason for re-blocking him. This is involvement of the most obvious kind.
 * Supporting a block of Malleus and 'trouting' the unblocking admin (John).
 * An unexplained reversion of that support.
 * Inconsequential exchange with another editor.
 * Inconsequential block threat on another editor.
 * Comment opposing John's unblock and 'trouting' him.

Hawkeye wheel-warred to re-block Malleus and misled Arbcom about the circumstances in which he did so
It has been said that Malleus' comment to Spitfire gave rise to new grounds for a block, such that Hawkeye was not wheel-warring when he re-imposed the block. Hawkeye has retrospectively tried to adopt the Spitfire comment as the reason for blocking Malleus: "Malleus was blocked solely for actions after being unblocked". This is plainly untrue. The block log said: "Long term abuse". That's all it said. By definition, that is incompatible with the statement that "Malleus was blocked solely for actions after being unblocked". Hawkeye's statement to Arbcom is also incompatible with the reasons for the block that he posted on Malleus' talk page. The reasons were four-fold. None included the Spitfire comment. The reasons centred around the discussion on ANI, in which Hawkeye was obviously involved. They also repeated the 'long-term' comment. Hawkeye simply reversed John's unblock without anything approaching a consensus to do so. Hawkeye has now misled Arbcom to adopt a new reason for his block that justifies his wheel-warring.
 * Block log showing original block by Thumperward, unblock by John, and reblock by Hawkeye
 * ANI thread, as it stood at the time of Hawkeye's re-block.
 * Hawkeye's statement to Arbcom
 * Reasons (x4) given by Hawkeye on Malleus' talk page for re-block.

Hawkeye has been admonished by Arbcom for blocking when involved before

 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Racepacket.

Shortly after the re-block, Hawkeye made a derogatory statement about Malleus to an uninvolved editor

 * Derogatory statement

Hawkeye did not make a derogatory statement about Malleus
A derogatory statement by Hawkeye about MF is not in evidence. Perception does not invalidate the explanation Hawkeye rendered. I am familiar with stewed being used in the context Hawkeye described. Show diffs that contravene this evidence, or consider removing the allegation. My76Strat (talk) 11:20, 29 December 2011 (UTC) Refactored to remove commentary. My76Strat (talk) 08:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

===Thumperward's block of MF was improper=== In blocking MF, Thumperward cites the "Food for thought" section of the RfA talk in justification. The edit history of that page shows MF publish his perception of a relatively large group of administrators "who appear to be dishonest cunts". Deb enters the conversation and expresses disdain for the language being used. Thumperward enters the conversation and comments to Deb that she "must be new here". Thumperward approved MF's edit by not objecting at the time. By blocking Mf over 5 hours after having condoned the very same edit, Thumperward violated WP:INVOLVED and WP:NOTPUNISHMENT. My76Strat (talk) 11:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

MF was not sanctioned for use of a vulgarism
Upon the original post, MF was never sanctioned. Evidence shows he was in fact joined by another editor, HuskyHuskie, who posts the same expression. It was only after Deb not only once, but twice expressed clear and convincing disdain for having been offended. Additionally Buster7 intervened and asked that "common courtesy" be extended to Deb regarding these circumstances. MF opined against any such notion and trivialized Deb and her assertion of offense with a demeaning commenting. It was the incivility that drew community ire, and now lies before ArbCom for resolution. Further evidence that the word alone is not culprit, derives from the fact that no sanction was brought against HuskyHuskie, having use the same word. My76Strat (talk) 09:40, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Abusive words may be unacceptably offensive in British English
It has been suggested that words such as "cunt" are more acceptable in British English than elsewhere. Be that as it may, it still seems that such words are not generally acceptable to the British public. The issue has been formally studied by Ofcom to assist them in regulating broadcasting. The full report was Language and Sexual Imagery in Broadcasting and a news summary is here. For the word in question, the summary of focus group responses was "Most offensive word to majority, and never really acceptable (though some might occasionally use). Very strong word and particularly disliked by women."

John, by unblocking Malleus, engaged in misuse of administrative tools
This diff shows that John admits full awareness that he might be considered involved. In his defense, he quotes from WP:INVOLVED "In cases which are straightforward, (e.g. blatant vandalism), the community has historically endorsed the obvious action of any administrator – even if involved – on the basis that any reasonable administrator would have probably come to the same conclusion." I regret that John did not see fit to include and discuss the next sentence in the policy, "Although there are exceptions to the prohibition on involved editors taking administrative action, it is still best practice in cases where an administrator may be seen to be involved to pass the matter to another administrator via the relevant noticeboards." I don't see how that is anything but dead on point. John was involved, and he was hardly the only admin around. He should not have unblocked Malleus, but left it to someone else.

Per this, John had 141 edits to Malleus's talk page as of the day before the unblock. (using the same tools with respect to other recent Malleus unblocks shows that Mkativerata had 0 edits to Malleus's talk page as of the day before their unblock, Nikkimaria 8, and Ucucha 9. The last two are FA delegates, who are obviously going to need to talk to one of our star FA contributors, and despite the cries of "cabal", I see no evidence of it). Some examples, however of John's edits:
 * 11 November: John states of a block of Malleus by admin Kaldari, promptly undone by Mkativerata "What a pain in the arse. I am usually inclined to put such things down to incompetence rather than corruption, though at a certain point there is no practical difference. Do you mean to say that Kaldari hasn't apologized to you yet?" diff
 * 30 October: John thanks Malleus for praising him in another forum; Kaldari's actions are mentioned. diff.
 * 29 October: John agrees with Malleus that a desysoping of Kaldari would be good if a pattern of involved use of the tools can be shown.  here.

Don't block your enemies; don't unblock your friends. Arbs should note the following policy extracts:

Per WP:BLOCK, " Unblocking will almost never be acceptable when it would constitute wheel warring" which "may lead to sanctions for misuse of administrative tools—possibly including desysopping—even for first time incidents."

Per WP:INVOLVED: "In general, editors should not act as administrators in cases in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may have, or may be seen as having, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute."

Clearly the lack of validity of John's unblock raises issues about whether Hawkeye7's block was wheel warring or not. --Wehwalt (talk) 14:20, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Unblocks may enable behavior for which editors were blocked
In his statement John says he believes "blocking for breaches of civility is as productive as fighting for peace or fucking for virginity". I trust his unblock wasn't an intentional attempt to do away civility enforcement and to be fair he says there are better ways with MF. But a review of disputed unblocks of editors with long-term block records shows that they sometimes read the unblocks as vindication of their behavior, which may lead to further dispute, administrative action, and ultimate separation from the project. Not always as my sample shows, but sometimes. These were picked fairly randomly:
 * - blocked then unblocked twice for incivility and trolling in September, 2008 after a history of +/- 5 prior civility blocks. See Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Kmweber ban discussion.  Subsequently indeffed again in December, 2009 and March 2010 for incivility.  At User:Kmweber/Responses, says unblocking is evidence that the blocks were mistakes.  Nevertheless, also admits that his behavior was problematic.  Has been inactive since 2010.
 * Blocked along with alternate account, in April 2010 after considerable history involving sockpuppetry, unauthorized use of bots, abuse of rollback tools, incivility, etc.  See Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive608.  Unblocked despite strong opposition.  Quickly reblocked then unblocked after violating editing restrictions.
 * . (suggested by User:Scott MacDonald).  Administrative history too complex to easily comprehend, but was repeatedly blocked and unblocked for edit warring and incivility. Obviously, whatever the community tried didn't work.  Eventually banned 1 year by ArbCom.
 * [more to come, possibly]

Using "cunt" as an epithet is unacceptable in a range of contexts

 * Under US employment law using the word cunt is degrading to women employees and its use in the workplace may constitute sexual harassment, even when the word is not directed to them.
 * In New Zealand radio listeners judged "cunt" to be the most offensive among 23 "bad" words and phrases, significantly more than second-ranked "nigger".
 * An English panel rated "cunt" at the second most offensive among 33 words, behind "fuck" but also ahead of "nigger". Another English study rated it the most offensive word, never acceptable, and particularly disliked by women.
 * Cunt has been the "primary English language taboo" for five centuries, with certain limited exceptions.
 * Commentators say the word's demeaning effect on women arises because it reinforces women's shame over their bodies and sexuality.

Malleus knew the term would offend, but refused to stop using it

 * From the talk page: "I've never claimed I was unaware that some might take offence at seeing the word "cunt", particularly Americans, who seem to manufacture offence on an industrial scale. But I don't believe that means we have to be restricted to a vocabulary unlikely to offend the most zealous of Bible-belters."
 * Malleus also states that his intent was not say something sexist.

Malleus's statement and actions to retain it were directly harmful to the goals of the encyclopedia
One of Wikipedia's most important recent goals has been to increase the participation of women as editors; as covered by the New York Times, for example. High among the reasons women do not participate as much, as stated in that article, are the openness to high conflict and misogyny. This incident could be a poster child for that.


 * After Malleus made his comment, User:Deb stated it shocked her, was offensive and sexist, and asked him to "please rephrase".
 * Malleus refused.
 * User:Buster7 asked that Deb's request be honored, citing "common courtesy".
 * Malleus again refused.
 * Deb restated her hope that Malleus would not use this "particularly offensive term".
 * In response, Malleus suggested that she was "obviously unfamiliar" with the real world.
 * User:Prodego removed the entire section, with the edit comment "improve wikipedia".
 * Malleus restored it with the edit comment "how dare you".

Malleus then made only two other edits before being blocked, neither dealing with the incident,, until he was blocked.

As speculated below, it may have been possible that Malleus made his comment without thinking that would be considered sexist and offensive by female editors at whom it was not targeted. However, after being explicitly, politely, and repeatedly, told that it was so considered, he then repeatedly refused to remove it, and edit warred to keep the exchange on the page.

Hawkeye7 has wheel-warred
I'm going to quote most of my prior comment, which still stands:

As I mentioned before, wheel-warred against community consensus. As can be seen on the version of WP:ANI at the time of the weeklong block (7:17 GMT 22 Dec. 2011), consensus was strongly in favor of removing the original indefblock. Granted, Malleus's blatant personal attack was unacceptable, but given the inappropriate blocks it is understandable.

Hawkeye7 was too biased to make an administrative judgement
Hawkeye7 hypocritically gloated on 's talk page right after blocking Malleus, making personal attacks on him in the process. Then he made up some nonsense about "stewed" meaning "about ready to boil over" rather than "drunk". His reference to a koala makes his intent all the more clear, as koalas have a very placid nature, and there is a common urban legend that the eucalyptus leaves that they eat get them drunk.

The consensus was that a block should be imposed, but that an indefinite block was too severe. Erm? What consensus? I see only a consensus that the indefblock should be lifted. There was no consensus for a block, which would have given Hawkeye7 license to reinstate the block.

John has not wheel-warred
Wheel-warring, per WP:WHEEL, only occurs if an administrative action is reinstated after being reversed. John reversed Thumperward's block; he did not re-unblock Malleus after Hawkeye reblocked.

Thumperward and Malleus are both not really to blame
Our civility policy is essentially a lame-duck policy. It does very little to actually state what is or is not incivility. Malleus could easily come to the conclusion that he was not over the line. On the same token, Thumperward could come to the conclusion that Malleus was so far over the line that it warranted a long block. Therefore, the Arbitration Committee needs to help clarify exactly where the limit is. I believe that this is the root of the conflict between "civility police" and "long-time contributors".

Concluding remarks
I apologize if some of my remarks are a bit rough, but this needs to be said. Thanks. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

John was "involved" and by unblocking Malleus, misused his administrative tools
Applicable policy: WP:INVOLVED and WP:Administrators

I have had the advantage of reading the evidence provided by User:Wehwalt above, with which I am in full agreement. I will therefore limit my evidence to supporting the extent to which Admin. John was involved and should have avoided any Admin. action involving MF. In the week before the disputed unblock, John & the subject of this case had discussed, among other things, the continued need for a civility policy, administrators and blocking . Naturally this type of “shooting the breeze” chit chat is perfectly permissible, if not a little creepy in its conclusion . However, being “in debt to your intellectual honesty” with an editor with whom extensive prior interaction had taken place concerning Admin. responsibilities is evidence of a conflict of interest on John’s part and his unblock was therefore wholly inappropriate and a serious misjudgement.

Malleus makes personal attacks on a regular basis
Here's a sample from this year. Note that some of these attacks are replies to polite inquiries or requests rather than escalating arguments.
 * Malleus Fatuorum 04:52, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 05:43, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * See the edit summary: Malleus Fatuorum 01:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 01:54, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * See the edit summary: Malleus Fatuorum 03:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 00:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 18:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 06:13, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 01:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 01:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 23:52, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 04:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 00:21, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 23:58, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 20:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 01:56, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 01:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 09:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 23:34, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 17:14, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 18:28, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 15:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 05:37, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 04:37, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 04:20, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 04:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 19:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 02:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The list above includes attacks against 17 different editors (only 4 of which are admins).

Malleus is uncivil on a regular basis

 * Malleus Fatuorum 06:34, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 03:38, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 23:33, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 02:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 23:49, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 23:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 17:09, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 03:23, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 02:39, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 20:53, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Malleus Fatuorum 20:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I've reached my diff limit, but you get the picture...

Attempts to convince Malleus to abide by Wikipedia policies have failed
Numerous people have tried to convince Malleus to abide by the Civility and NPA policies through both polite requests and stern warnings (not to mention the frequent AN/I threads and 14 blocks). These requests are always met with indignant defiance (or further attacks).

Malleus has repeatedly been uncivil and disruptive at WP:RfA
I've reached my diff limit, but 5 of the diffs above are from WP:RfA or WT:RfA. In addition, this aborted RfC from 2008 is in regard to incivility at WP:RfA.

Evidence presented by ScWizard
before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

Community consensus is that blocks for personal attacks on administrators are unwarranted
Every time Malleus Fatuorum is blocked for personally attacking an administrator, the community rallies behind him on ANI and supports an unblock. Administrators are expected to be long time editors with thick skins, we're not talking about biting newbies here. Rather than taking the name calling in stride though, admins will get an admin friend to block the offender which seems to me like a misuse of tools.

If we read WP:NPA then it says the resolve personal attacks by:
 * Ignoring them.
 * Leaving a polite message on the users block page.

The only personal attacks that are blockable according to policy are "extraordinary situations" that are "particularly offensive or disruptive." It might be possible to argue that "cunt" is a particularly offensive word, so a day long block would be fair in that context. However 90% of the things Malleus is blocked for are for personal attacks that don't cross the line into "particularly offensive or disruptive" and that is the reason the blocks keep getting reversed.

The only reason he's blocked to begin with is because he attacks administrators. The blocks are incorrectly applied though, so this doesn't make Malleus a long term abuser.

Malleus makes excellent contributions to Wikipedia, and is sometimes genuinely kind...
I said so, and he agreed with me. (ArbCom should take him up on that.) He is sometimes generous and helpful to inexperienced editors seeking advice:, , , , , , , (although there is also ). He is even capable of this (as well as whatever this is ).

...and he also tries to make administrator-related discussions about himself and not about the matters at hand.
The WT:RFA thread that brought us here began as a good faith post by another editor about RfA:.
 * Malleus makes a post that he knows from experience is going to provoke a reaction: . (Note that his past experience includes this: .)
 * Deb comments: . Now, anyone can belch up a soliloquy on trans-Atlantic cultural differences, freedom of speech, and Lenny Bruce, but Deb's comment is not unreasonable, and Wikipedia needs to be a place where such comments can be made without fear of intimidation.
 * Malleus, like any editor in such a situation, has a choice. He can escalate to make a WP:POINT, or he can deescalate to help move towards consensus. He chooses to escalate:.
 * Malleus proclaims his martyrdom retirement from editing, eliciting a chorus of please don't leave us . (He still seems to be here.)

Malleus has repeatedly made comments related to administrators as a group and about RfA that do not really improve the discussion, but which are clearly provocative:, , , ,. Here, he makes a seemingly constructive comment, then after another editor agrees with him in good faith , , he abruptly reverses his opinion in order to be argumentative.

Malleus frequently proclaims his martyrdom retirement from editing, , , , , eliciting a chorus of please don't leave us , , ,. Taken together, there is a pattern of subverting the consensus process in order to draw attention to himself. Isn't that really what constitutes a high-functioning troll?

"Cunt" and the variety of Englishes spoken on wikipedia

 * 1) There are multiple varieties of English are spoken on wikipedia.
 * 2) Some are predominantly national, others classed sociolects.
 * 3) Most editors speak en_US.
 * 4) The nature of swearing in en_US is highly limited compared to other Englishes.
 * 5) Many editors do not speak en_US, or similarly highly limited Englishes or sociolects.
 * 6) In en_AU, The Macquarie Dictionary Online's meanings for cunt in order of use: technical and genital; 2 definitions of genderless contempt, a contemptible person, or a contemptible object; a collective description of a group of women as sexual ("a lot of cunt last night"); the act of sex; an adjective for contemptible conduct; a singular description of a woman as sexual "a bit of cunt"; and a stereotyped phrase describing contemptibility "a cunt of a ...".
 * 7) Wikipedia is not a workplace or any of the other examples given of sociolectically restricted environments:
 * 8) Metaphors regarding workplaces fail as not all fucking workplaces are like your fucking workplace; even the example of the fucking higher education industry.
 * 9) Wikipedia is inherently not a sociolectically restricted environment, it is a free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit, regardless of sociolect.
 * 10) Attempts to restrict another's sociolect or variety of English—based merely on the word content—is fucking incivil conduct as it amounts to an attempt to cunt the consensus building process by removing another's language from them.
 * 11) Attempts to restrict another's English, when directed at sociolects spoken by working class people, is an incivility bound up with systemic bias.
 * 12) Attempts to remove an editor's language has a chilling effect on the generation of content, attraction of editors and retention of editors.

Administrator competence regarding civility and varieties of English is poor

 * 1) Civility is not about lexical content; but, about a hinderance of the encyclopaedic process.
 * 2) Administrators have become adept at enforcing en_US derived conduct standards at the level of singular words or phrases, as this requires a low level of competence.
 * 3) Administrators have neglected unfucking long term hinderances of the encyclopaedic process, as this requires a higher level of competence than most administrators possess.
 * 4) Enforcement of the former has been conducted to the detriment of resolution of the latter.
 * 5) Administrators are expected to be competent when using their tools, especially upon editors.
 * 6) Administrators are expected to be competent at determining if actions have been taken by other administrators
 * 7) Including null actions: positive actions taken over null actions need to be treated as wheel warring.
 * 8) Administrators are held to a higher standard of conduct: their use of administrative tools is held to conduct standards.
 * 9) Any administrator who has insufficient familiarity with the standard Englishes and sociolects spoken by our contributors to block on standard uses of words in sociolects they're not familiar with; and, who is unable to determine the difference between a fucking adjective and a personal attack should on the basis of incompetence request removal of administrative tools or avoid civility issues.

Editors have been concerned about IRC and the administration of civility going back at least to early 2011 in a half hour manual diff search

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

Failed administrator responses to civility, outside Risker's specs

 * 1) bad unblock
 * 2) extreme racism: 24h or indef?
 * 3) ANI's hostility to civility blocks
 * 4) effective
 * 5) religious attacks=>admin soapbox

Fifelfoo (talk) 08:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Malleus committed 'suicide by admin'

 * The edit summary of Malleus' abusive post directed at Spitfire was "farewell Wikipedia".
 * made this post on Malleus' talk page in relation to that post saying that he shouldn't "go the "suicide by civility cop" route". In response, Malleus posted "I've already gone. It's intolerable here".
 * As such, much of the above discussion about whether Malleus didn't realise that the comment directed at Spitfire would be considered offensive seems unnecessary, as he seems to have known that it would lead to a block.

Malleus' block log is unusual and concerning

 * Malleus' block log shows repeated instances of him being blocked for incivility and then unblocked within a matter of hours. Of the eight(!) blocks he's received for incivility in the period between January 2010 and Hawkeye's block, all but one (which only had a duration of 1 hour) ended in a rapid unblock (in one case the blocking admin rapidly reversed their own block with the summary of "not in the mood", and in three cases he was unblocked by another admin within 20 minutes of being blocked).
 * To put it mildly, this is highly unusual. I'm not familiar with the history of these blocks, but as a very experienced editor and admin I'm having a lot of trouble believing that Malleus was really the subject of seven blocks in a row which were so bad that they all needed to be overturned within minutes to a few hours.

Blocking admins have been targeted for abuse
Admins are expected to have a thick skin, but the two admins who've most recently blocked Malleus received some abusive and intimidating posts on their talk pages: Comments such as these are basically attempts to bully admins into submission.
 * Thumperward:, ,
 * Hawkeye7:, ,

The underlying issue: admins aren't able to do their job
It is clear from evidence from other editors here and elsewhere that Malleus has a reputation as being 'difficult to block', despite obvious - and long-running - problems with his conduct towards other editors at times. The comment directed at Spitfire could have only had two outcomes:
 * 1) If Hawkeye7 hadn't blocked Malleus, another admin probably would have. This kind of comment crosses multiple lines, as Malleus himself appears to have known. Given the above, it's clear that the admin would have then been abused by Malleus' supporters. It's also quite possible that another admin would have lifted the block within an hour or two as being a 'misunderstanding' or 'per [a heated and not policy-based] ANI discussion'.
 * 2) Alternately, Malleus might have escaped sanctions as all the admins who saw the comment may have judged that blocking him wouldn't be worth the effort given the drama and personal abuse it would inevitably lead to and the difficulty of making the block 'stick'. In which case he would have gotten another green light to carry on abusing people.

Hawkeye7 removed his 'Koala' comment when asked, and explained why he made it

 * Asked:
 * Removed:
 * Explained:
 * Acknowledged:

Civility blocks are generally uncontroversial
I've been an admin for four years and often review unblock requests, and in my experience blocks for incivility are among the least controversial type of block. There are few discussions of such blocks at WP:AN and they rarely come up among the requests for unblock I review.

Malleus has helped new editors
All of the GAs that a group of AP Bio students has created so far this year have been copyedited by Malleus at the request of the article writer.


 * Articles
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

Issue resolved before initial block imposed
Note wikimedia sister projects Wiktionary and Wikiquote both support MFs explanation of the non-sexist usage of the term. UK based editors comments on usage of "cunt"   
 * Community affirms there are no "forbidden" words Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_91.
 * Malleus says "cunt".
 * User:HuskyHuskie also says "cunt," but is not blocked, warned or yelled at for it.
 * Admin User:28bytes responds to two uses of "cunt," declines to block anyone.
 * User:Deb, previously uninvolved in conversation scare quotes MF as a "senior editor" and requests rephrasing.
 * User:Thumperward makes snide comment.
 * Malleus refuses.
 * User:Buster7 condescendingly addresses MF in terms suitable for a 5 to 12 year with whom one has an authority (parent/teacher) relationship, showing no good faith and assuming their cultural perspective is universal in the English speaking world.
 * Malleus politely refuses, noting it's a matter of opinion.
 * Deb demonstrates WP:IDHT by restating her request
 * Malleus refuses again.
 * I see discussion on MFs talk page, including description of UK nonsexist usage. Understanding the American connotation, and concerned that if the comment stands as is some admin might make a illadvised block and trigger a Kaldari redux Wikiplosion, I make a good faith, non accusatory request to be allowed to redact without starting an edit war.
 * MF agrees.
 * Use of word "cunt" redacted (
 * 3 hours and 9 minutes after redaction, with no prior discussion at ANI, et. al., Thumperward makes block which triggers the Wikiplosion currrently in progress.[]
 * User:MZMcBride restores "cunts" to discussion, but is not blocked, warned or yelled at for it.

Incivility common, not taken seriously by entire user community

 * 1) Situation including being called "a prick" on WQA was deemed as requring "no action" and the users told "shut the fuck up ; a report on WP:AN was closed as "not actionable"
 * 2) Admin tells user FUCK OFF, refuses to apologize when called on it by two users , conduct is validated by another admin who says the "cesspool" is this RFAR.
 * 3) A six year, 30,000 edit, 361 new article, clean block log editor reports a page accidentally CSD'd; he is criticized for bringing the issue to ANI. Jokes about fishes abound, and the report is closed with the comment "duh.". The editors notes By now I don't expect any better. Which is why I seldom bother doing anything for Wikipedia anymore
 * 4) New user (first day of editing), recent threatened with block after using term Wikifreak mocked in edit summary Nobody Ent 13:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Little consensus on appropriateness of incivility blocks
ani case,, failed proposal Incivility_blocks Nobody Ent 10:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Talk page comments removed
Removal of talk page comments 'improve Wikipedia,'kind of like this, actually ', 'pure trolling garbage '

MF "biting" newbie
Per his request Nobody Ent 00:20, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Fairness important
Primate studies demonstrate the importance of fairness.

Hawkeye7 flawed rationale just imprecise language not lying
Per Mkativerata, Hawks original rationale was inconsistent with his later assertion to have blocked solely for the Spitfire attack.

But there seems no reason not to AGF that the inconsistency was due to the imprecise use of language which frequently occurs in emotionally heated situations. For example, John's rationale was perhaps equally inconsistent with what actually happened. John said there was consensus for an unblock, but surely there is no way "consensus" can form less than 20 mins after the ANI thread was started and when Chis hadnt even had a chance to post his rationale: ANI just after the unblock.

This is not to imply John was lying or deserves even a minor sanction, just to say Hawks imprecise use of language is not unusual given the situation.

Hawkeye7 not involved
Per Hawks statement above it seems sensible that taking part in discussion doesn't make an admin WP:Involved in the current situation. And this seems common practice, for example only yesterday Admin ''Boing! said Zebedee'' blocked good Porchcorpter about 6 hours after voting to sanction them on ANI, but even as Porch's wiki Otter that seems to have been a good block, which stood a chance of saving Porch from more severe sanction, and in no way a WP:Involved violation. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Hawkeye7
I have never overturned any action of another administrator. I regard this as sacrosanct. Even when, and perhaps especially, when I personally disagree. I want to add for the record that I did not disagree with the lifting of the original block. My sole concern was that it done while the matter was still under discussion.

I regard the use of a block as being for egregious and unwarranted personal attacks like this one. This was the sole reason for a block. I resolved to block immediately after that remark.

There was no wheel warring. Malleus was blocked solely for actions after being unblocked. This was after the previous block/unblock cycle. If an editor is blocked for a particular reason and then unblocked (in this case on the basis that attacks were not personal) then it was in no way overturning the unblock if the editor commits a different offence (in this case makes attacks which were personal.

I did not believe that this constituted a WP:WHEEL. My comments on the block were related to the duration of the block, and why I believed that a whole week was warranted. The reason for the block was admittedly in error. The reason may genuinely differ. I once blocked an editor for vandalism, but the reason for a month's block is "Vandalism only account".

I came in as an uninvolved editor. I have no history of involvement with Malleus. I do not agree that participation in a discussion on WP:ANI constitutes involvement. I and many other admins have taken action before on the basis of such discussions. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:01, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Racist remarks by Malleues

 * If I ruled the world I'd block (almost) every Irish editor for starters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Malleus_Fatuorum/Archives/2011/December#Re:_Irish_rewrites)
 * Are all Brazilian lawyers so disingenuous? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive53#Should_newly_promoted_FAs_be_presumed_ready_to_run_at_TFA.3F) Check the "Past the point of constructive discourse" block.

Policy on Administrators

 * WP:ADMIN: They are never required to use their tools.

Wikipedia articles

 * Seven dirty words
 * Cunt one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock
 * Profanity In the United Kingdom, swearing in the workplace can be an act of gross misconduct

Evidence presented by Eraserhead1
As I've said before (and supported by others, and to a lesser extent ), but while there has been improvement I think its worth saying again.

In general civility matters
As a general point civility isn't taken seriously by the community and there are a small number of regular editors who seem to regularly behave in an uncivil way and essentially get away with it. While their contributions may be reasonably good there are undoubtably a significant number other editors who are driven away from the project because of it - a couple of whom have had letters published in the Economist, this isn't a good thing, and steps should be taken to make sure that continued incivility isn't considered acceptable.

It should be noted that one of these letters was written by Captain Occam who is now blocked by the arbitration committee

Evidence presented by Deb
I had intended to stay out of this, but there are a couple of aspects of the matter that need to be highlighted. I wandered into the arena innocently enough, looking at a talk page with interest, and horrified at the way someone with a lot of experience was behaving. I have no grudge against Malleus and was previously unaware of his disenchantment with the project, stemming from a bad experience when he applied to become an admin. I sympathise with him on this, as I consider adminship to be "no big deal" and I would never voluntarily put myself through the ordeal contributors have to go through these days in order to achieve it. However, I don't want to go over old ground; these are my two concerns:
 * 1) I interpreted Malleus’s use of obscene language., in context, as intentionally offensive. Malleus says that it was not his intention to be offensive, and I assume good faith, though I don’t accept his suggestion that it is impossible to be offensive unless you name an individual target.  In common with some dictionaries, I consider “offensive” and “insulting” to be near-synonyms, but it seems other contributors don’t: one believes that Malleus intended to be insulting, but not offensive.  If the arbitrators can obtain clarification of what Malleus’s intention actually was, it might help decide the outcome.  There is a difference between a blanket insult directed at administrators as a group, expressed in the foulest language and designed to cause offence, and rude comments occurring in the context of a heated quarrel between individuals over a specific topic.  The latter can easily be forgiven and forgotten; the former is more difficult to overlook and experienced contributors have to be able to rise above it in order to be taken seriously.
 * 2) Unfortunately, Malleus has unwittingly become a focus for discontent. Following my fairly mild interaction with him, other users, including (random selection) User:Parrot of Doom , User:Dr. Blofeld  and User:Melicans  made a point of using the same offensive word on his talk page, perhaps in the hope of "saving" Malleus, failing to see that the mere parroting of his words, whether in the context of a logical debate or otherwise, does not convey the same offensive intention and just exacerbates matters.  User:Yworo  and User:Kiefer.Wolfowitz  have even created user boxes including the word, believing this to be a way of "supporting" Malleus.  When I dared to argue with those who claim that the word is not offensive (because they don't happen to find it offensive), the response was so aggressive that I left the discussion.  Browbeating is off-putting for serious contributors, and drives away new contributors.  By ganging up on those they see as Malleus's enemies, these contributors risk achieving the opposite of what they wanted.  Cliques and claques turn up in every organisation, we can't get rid of them, but perhaps we can learn to spot the follow-my-leader mentality that results in them and try to neutralize it before it gets out of hand.

Evidence presented by Moni3
I have unblocked Malleus Fatuorum twice following what I consider blocks so poorly thought out that they did not warrant discussion at ANI.


 * First instance, blocked by March 6, 2010 for making this comment.
 * Second instance, blocked by July 10, 2010 after Rodhullandemu made clear his desire to block Malleus. Full exchange here.

Questions and matters of clarity
The first time I unblocked Malleus speaks to the purpose of this case.


 * What is the difference between a civility block and the frequently-deprecated-at-RfA cool-down block? This needs to be answered clearly by the Arbitration Committee.
 * Are blocks intended to be used as behavior modification, particularly on experienced users who are outwardly unrepentant at the behavior that initiated the block in the first place? I saw TenOfAllTrades' block as an attempt at behavior modification that was clearly ineffective and served only to inflame a bad situation.
 * What do blocks of these kinds protect? What was protected in these two instances? What can ArbCom clarify about what admins should do with editors they find offensive in the future?
 * I believe TenOfAllTrades made his block in the best faith he had, and RfA is intended to ensure admins don't make dumb, self-serving decisions based on low self-esteem and a desire for get back at editors who have displeased them in some way (although this is not always evident in practice). The administrator's corps is rarely challenged--or at least at the time it was--on the purpose of blocking. Much of the conflict in this case comes from the confidence admins place in established rules, which were made in good faith at the time, but have been shown to be too simplistic for some situations. Many of these civility/cool-down blocks are hastily thought through and carried out, not taking into consideration more complex issues that may be understood with some administrator effort and knowledge.
 * Few editors have the clout to challenge admins in a significant way as Malleus does, which is part of the reason this case has attracted so much attention. The conventional wisdom about blocking has evolved in significant part due to Malleus' challenges. Malleus was blocked by for calling an admin a "sycophant". Not only did Gwen Gale overturn her block, but has apparently changed her perception of what kind of language is allowed in critical discourse of the administrative corps, evident here. Malleus' frequent challenges of what is appropriate language/discourse serve a legitimate purpose, although I do not often agree with his methods and think some of them are pointless or unnecessarily inflammatory.

The second time I unblocked Malleus reflects similar issues. Rodhullandemu is no longer editing.


 * If the civility blocks imposed upon Malleus are so similar to cool-down blocks as not to be discernible from each other, what can admins do to cool down a situation before blocking becomes necessary? Admins get involved in disputes entirely too late, particularly in content, where the majority of admins do not appreciate the issues--because they have so little content-building experience--and must rely on the cut-and-dry decisions of blocking upon seeing profanity, when a situation has become so toxic that constructive communication is impossible. These situations can be averted by a cool-headed editor or admin who explains policy or clarifies confusing points to multiple sides of a dispute.


 * At what point does blocking become necessary? I think this is one of the most integral questions for this case. What is most integral for admins to protect in making a block?


 * Disruption is also at the heart of this case. Disruption of the functioning of the site in building and maintaining this encyclopedia. It has been my experience that admins cannot recognize disruption in the creation and maintenance of excellent content, and subsequently only recognize profane language as disruption when perfectly civil language is employed to degrade content. This is allowed and is much more destructive both to content and editor morale. Please define clearly what disruption is and suggest what admins should do to counter disruptive behavior.

Evidence submitted by SandyGeorgia
Responding to Hersfold's direct request:

Uneven civility enforcement, Malleus is a target
Similar to claims about Malleus, User has an extensive block log, yet multiple admins did not apply the same scrutiny to one direct personal attack and incivil language directed at named editors, inconsistent with the reaction when Malleus uses vulgar language not directed at specific users.

30 November, TCO
 * 03:21 Posts " crap from you, Sandy ... Whole place has pussy juice leaking out of its nutsack ... Sandy with her little declining kingdom ..."
 * 03:46 Posts "motherfuckers", referring to named editors in discussion of DYK close paraphrasing
 * 04:19 Art LaPella (admin) redacts TCO personal attack, without issuing warning
 * 04:38 Materialscientist (admin) issues a friendly note about "motherfuckers" (directed at specific editors) immediately below TCO's "pussy juice" comment.
 * While TCO was a highly watched editor because of a recent Signpost issue, at least nine admins were watchlisting his page or aware of his attacks elsewhere. Some of them have opined in this case, while no admin took action wrt TCO. These include:
 * User:Wehwalt, TCO's mentor
 * User:Art LaPella, redacted "motherfuckers"
 * User:Materialscientist (who did not invoke TCO's block log to the extent that routinely happens with Malleus's every word.
 * 1 December TCO edit warring (in conjuction with mentor Wehwalt, his only-ever edits to Wehwalt FA), labels good faith editor "crufty rule monger" while misstating FAC image review
 * 2 December Incidents above are posted to my talk (over 450 watchers) in a widely followed discussion involving many admins, nary a warning to TCO.

This case is not about Malleus: it's about uneven civility enforcement. Point is not that any of these admins were required to take action (we are all volunteers), but that Malleus's every word is watched, and if Malleus had made the same statements TCO did (who has an equal block log), he would have been instantly blocked. Egregious incivil behavior (including but not limited to profanity) occurs daily on Wikipedia, yet those editors are ignored, while admins who have been offended by Malleus's stances at RFA have their finger on the trigger to block him.

I have other examples of uneven civility enforcement (I was told to "fuck off" in full view of several arbs; to "shut the fuck up"; and others where even warnings were not issued)-- this is only the most recent. At least Art LaPella and Wehwalt are opining in the Workshop and Evidence talk pages here, and Wifione has previously tried to claim I had civility issues.  The most recent example of the "C" word directed at no specific editor at RFA is evidence that Malleus is blocked for less than TCO. Malleus is targeted for civility "enforcement" that is routinely ignored in others; it wore him down to the point of his final "f'ing C" comment, which was Wikicide.

TCO's pussy juice is far more offensive than Malleus's comment at RFA; it twice names a female editor, who works in an area dominated by females (FAC), while Malleus's comment was directed at no one in particular, and not at females. 03:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:Civility policy

 * As partially posted here on line 412:


 * WP:Civility is an "English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow." It states,

"... We do block for major incivility. When incivility rises to the level of disruption, personal attacks, harassment or outing, blocks may be employed, as explained in those policies."

WP:Blocking policy

 * blocking policy

WP:ANI not respecting WP:CIVIL as "a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow"

 * Edit comment and diff: Do you want WP:CIVIL issues to be a blockable concern or not? I myself wish they were.

Unscintillating (talk) 00:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Ched Davis
link After that conversation User:Nobody Ent redacted the word from the RfA conversation (I believe without objection from Malleus). I can not say whether or not Thumperward was aware of the Malleus talk page conversation; he was however obviously aware of the RFA discussion since he made the "You must be new here" comment some 7+ hour prior to blocking. — Ched : ?  18:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

History
The community has in the past attempted to clarify issues regarding our civility policy. see: Civility/Poll — Ched : ?  18:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

"Cunt" is commonly used as a non-sexist term in the UK
Irvine Welsh's Glue uses it 322 times. In an interview about it: "... the meaning of words changes through use and abuse, and becomes something else. ... [for him], fuck and cunt are not swearwords. ... 'I got completely cunted in the pub last night', it means he got plastered rather emphatically. The point is, where he comes from it would be offensive to use the term to mean female genitalia. Apart from that, it's a good, blunt word, ... But none of these words is used to shock. They're just emphatics, nothing to get alarmed about."

"This Bloke Came Up To Me" on Derek and Clive (Live) (1976) uses it 36 times as two men exchange it repeatedly, directed at each other. Re: their The Cunt Sketch, British-American author John Derbyshire writes, "In England the word ... is much more frequently heard, especially in reference to a person the speaker finds disagreeable..." He cites Kingsley Amis's Memoirs (1971), in which Kingsley tells of Tony Benn's arrival to his home: "At the first sight ... the thought flashed into my mind, "Who is this English cunt?" The distinguishing adjective is important. There are Scottish cunts, there are even Welsh cunts, and God knows there are American cunts, but the one in question could have come from nowhere else but this green and pleasant land."

In an article in New Statesman, Laurie Penny recounts a story from her childhood wherein she at the age of 11 (c.1997), for the first time using the word in her life, refers to a male schoolmate as an "utter cunt" as he physically harasses her.

Stuff White Brits Like, a spin-off of Stuff White People Like, lists "cunt": "From Shakespeare’s ‘country matters’ to every second word Malcolm Tucker pronounces, the word ‘cunt’ is deeply embedded in white British culture. While using it as a descriptor of female genitalia is frowned upon, it is entirely acceptable to use this word as an insult for people in a variety of circumstances. Between friends (usually male), it is a jocular moniker. ... Aimed at a Tory politician, it is deadly serious, as demonstrated by Jarvis Cocker’s ... (Cunts Are Still) Running the World. ... Brits call someone a cunt on pretty much a daily basis."

Opposing its use is sexist
Kate Allen, "a London-based journalist and political activist", writes: "But really 'cunt' is no different to 'dick' ... its taboo comes simply from its origin as a 'naughty' sex-related word. Opposing the use of 'cunt' is itself sexist, because it grants more respected status to a woman's genitals than to a man's. The extra level of offensiveness that many people perceive the word to carry implies a squeamishness about women's bits - this attitude is in itself sexist or even misogynist!"

The second part of this quote is particularly important for Wikipedians to discuss. It is acceptable (in practice, if not in policy) to call someone a "dick" here. Why is "cunt" different? Because it's more offensive? Why is it more offensive? Are cunts considered nastier than dicks? What about the word makes it more offensive to be used in the same context? These are the questions that need to be answered if the established double standard on this project is to continue.

Evidence presented by Prodego
How easily this could have been avoided. This outcome was predictable, and could have been avoided, but for Malleus and Nobody Ent. That was an off topic discussion that had no productive merits. It could just have been removed, it would have happened, that's all fine, but leaving it on WT:RFA it was just going to be drama bait. This is more of a personal rant than anything else. Think how much easier that would have been.

Evidence presented by User:Slp1
I have an interest and background in this area, so will present some research I've found.
 * Offensiveness- Scholarly sources, including research studies from several English-speaking countries, describe "cunt" as causing offense to many.. A 2000 UK study of offensive language with representative demographic sampling for the population found that 83% felt that "cunt" was "very severe". In contrast, and since "dick" has been mentioned as comparable, only 16% found that "dickhead" was "very severe"; 2005 UK and 2008 US studies including "dick" and "cunt" found similar results. Though logic might suggest that "dick" and "cunt" are equivalent words and should be equally offensive, this is not the case in the real world.
 * Unsurprisingly, there are variations: per Fifelfoo, Australia is more accepting of such vocabulary. Research consistently shows that women find words such as "cunt, motherfucker, fuck" more offensive than men, and words referring to women's genitalia, such as "cunt" particularly offensive.. Older men/women are more likely to be offended than younger ones.


 * Context- (In)appropriateness or (in)offensiveness is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Besides age/gender/geographic/sociocultural differences in communication, there are variations in the linguistic register used;  who is speaking, who is being spoken to, and who is listening all influence the vocabulary/grammar/interaction patterns/phonology/intonation used by the speaker. Humans learn these registers naturally and mostly incidentally, realizing that successful communication requires consideration of the needs of both the message's sender and receiver.  Registers vary depending on whether the listener is a baby, boss, chum, stranger, lover, judge, Great Aunt Harriet or the priest/rabbi at a funeral. For some individuals/cultures, swearwords may be appropriate in some of these contexts, but almost certainly not in all.  Research shows that people swear more in same gender company. Using swearwords with peers may be appropriate and not impolite, but not in more formal settings or between people in unequal relationships.
 * Wikipedia: WP is in the form of written language - a more formal register, permanent as compared to spoken language, and without non-verbal communication to help smooth interactions. WP is a highly public setting, with many "overhearers". Most contribute anonymously, possibly freeing them to use a different style than if they were engaging in public discourse elsewhere.

I have, somewhat typically, focussed on minutiae. There is a larger picture: incivility is not just "rude" words, and "civility enforcement" (and WP:NPA) is unevenly applied, often in a counterproductive fashion. Well-known editors both benefit and suffer in this regard. There is a larger problem: balancing individual communication styles with the community's goal to develop an encyclopedia "in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect". The evidence suggests that a linguistic free-for-all risks offending actual or potentially valuable contributors, particularly in some demographics. A global project such as this requires sensitivity and cooperation from both message senders and receivers: senders should use communication that is maximally effective in furthering the encyclopedic project - and that includes not intentionally offending people; receivers should consider culture and context and not leap to offense and unhelpful action.

Civility blocks of experienced editors are generally pointless
Others have presented similar evidence, so I give one illustrative example: on 26 October 2011, Kaldari blocked Malleus Fatuorum, apparently for this remark, and with the justification that he warned MF for personal attacks "last month". The block achieved nothing and was overturned by Mkativerata.

Should Malleus Fatuorum have been blocked for disruption rather than incivility?
This case is not specifically about MF, but I promised to present the evidence behind my view, expressed here, here, and here that regardless of the profanity issue, MF behaved in a deliberately disruptive fashion. I present this as a straightforward timeline, primarily using MF's own words, in order to provide context and allow every editor to draw their own conclusions, or disagree with/respond to mine. Edit summaries are in italics.

21 December 2011 (AM)


 * 01:31 Administrator double standard: ...it happens every day but only administrators get away with it; that's what's unacceptable
 * 02:02 Additional context: Writing a new page is piss easy
 * 03:38 Original remark: stick that in your pipe and smoke it. We ought not to admin bash across the board... I can think of far more who appear to be dishonest...
 * 06:13 Follow up (honest vs. dishonest): ...one believes (s)he's defending Wkipedia, whereas the other is just a self-important wanker...

21 December 2011 (PM)


 * 16:36, 17:36 Refusals to redact: No. and In your opinion perhaps, but not mine
 * 18:48 Not sexist (first defense): Sometimes it just has to be told like it is... And actually "cunt" isn't at all sexist where I live when it's used as a term of abuse
 * 18:50 Point making: Hasn't it ever struck you as odd that editors are allowed to call each other dicks...
 * 19:02 Interjection at User talk:Deb: Just make one up, like you administrators usually do
 * 19:08 Reiterating the point: ...I don't give a flying fuck. I see no reason why it's permissible to call regular editors "dicks" but not administrators "cunts"... (The first sentence could be interpreted as acquiescence to this redaction, which MF did not revert: MF has commented on this on the Workshop Page)
 * 19:18 Continuing the theme: Gentlemen's parts have been appropriated by the Wiki elite... but ladies' parts are out of bounds
 * 19:41 Disregard for other views: Yeah, like I give a shit


 * 22:34 Thumperward blocks

21/22 December 2011 (Night/AM)


 * 23:47 John unblocks


 * 23:49 Indefinite blocks are to force editors to recant. Fat chance of that
 * 00:28 Admission: I was making a point, not trying to entice anyone to do anything
 * 03:01 Contribution to edit war on original post, restoring unredacted version:
 * 04:52 Personal attack and farewell: farewell Wikipedia You are so much a fucking cunt Spitfire
 * 04:57 Reinstating personal attack: then don't behave like an arse
 * 05:03 I've already gone. It's intolerable here


 * 07:17 Hawkeye7 reblocks

22/23 December 2011


 * 22:19 Forgetting: just a reminder ...And just a reminder, I didn't call anyone a cunt
 * 01:56 Remembering: I have to admit that G guy is at least partially right ...I had forgotten about the witless Spitfire

Evidence presented by Worm That Turned
My evidence focusses on my primary areas of concern and will be the basis of my proposals. WormTT  &middot; &#32;(talk) 11:37, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Malleus Fatuorum vs Admins
Malleus Fatuorum clearly disapproves of adminship on Wikipedia. He is the most active at WT:RFA with 50% more edits than the next person. The majority of his votes at RFA are opposes, though they do generally match the outcome. Given that most RfAs which are unsuccessful close early, there are few users who have made more oppose votes than supports. Indeed he does regularly complain about adminship at RFA and about 'crat slow closures. RfA also appears to be an area in which he pushes the boundaries of civility regularly.

Thumperward blocked Malleus inappropriately
There was no way that Thumperward's block for "long-term hostility well beyond acceptable bounds" was going to stick. An indefinite block for a pattern of edits by a long term editor should not be unilaterally made by one administrator. This was especially problematic as the "final straw" comment had already been dealt with by administrator Ched Davis (in exactly the way I suggested a week earlier).

John was involved and may have wheel-warred
Whilst the block was inappropriate, it was not "obviously" so and too few editors had commented when John unblocked. John, who had previously promised that he would never block Malleus, should not have been the one to unblock. If Ched Davis deciding not to block based on the "final straw" comment was the first action - John's unblock can be seen as the first point of the wheel war.

Community cannot effectively deal with patterns of incivilty
As part of the collaborative evidence, there are many examples of incivility being raised however there have only been 3 Requests for comment regarding civility in the RfC Archives in 2011. Of those three, Bidgee retired temporarily, Kiefer.Wolfowitz retired temporarily and Badger Drink was blocked. Effectively, we have no way of dealing with incivility besides subjecting editors to a stressful process which will either make them quit or get them blocked.

I erred, and I apologise
Having reviewed my actions and thought it over, and especially having read the opinions of Leaky Caldron, Wehwalt and Worm That Turned, I find it is hard to avoid the conclusion that I was wrong to use my admin tools in this situation. I should have waited and/or allowed another administrator to make the unblock. I still hold that the initial indef block was disproportionate and unhelpful. The measure of how inappropriate my unblock was is not in the letter of the rules, but in how little my action did to alleviate the drama. I regret my actions and I apologise to the community and the committee for adding to the drama.--John (talk) 12:12, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Involved
Demiurge1000 summoned WormThatTurned to an ANI. Violating AGF/NPA, Demiurge1000 accused Kiefer.Wolfowitz of using copyrightviolation tags for political purposes. WTT ignored all misbehavior by Demiurge1000 and only criticized Kiefer.Wolfowitz.

"Discussion"
WTT used the RfC-format informally to make many false accusations against Kiefer.Wolfowitz.

RfC against Kiefer.Wolfowitz
WTT's RfC/U against Kiefer.Wolfowitz omitted any discussion of Demiurge1000's misbehavior.

28bytes stated that before some of Kiefer.Wolfowitz's allegedly uncivil comments, Demiurge had made comments that "were unneccessarily provocative and unhelpful".

Lies, damned lies, and RfCs
WormThatTurned's RFC against Kiefer.Wolfowitz began with issues that would not be addressed, smearing KW and  misrepresenting  KW's interactions with 3-4 editors.

"Politically biased editing, censorship"
WormThatTurned accused Kiefer.Wolfowitz of having removed material because of  KW's politics: "He feels articles... have an "ideological bias", which he solves by removing what he sees as OR/POV". This accusation was made despite KW's having had restored the deleted material!

WTT never apologized for this accusation.

DGG
DGG accused KW of having been rude to new editors. 

KW objected to DGG's accusation], repeatedly.

DGG never (a) provided one example of rudeness to a new editor or (b) withdrew this accusation.

Demiurge1000
Demiurge1000 accused Kiefer.Wolfowitz of incivility towards a "new" editor.

The "new editor" had been using 3 accounts to promote his party, outing' opponents, ...., for years.

"Idiot" telling "tales" "of sound and fury, signifying nothing"
WormThatTurned endorsed the description of Kiefer.Wolfowitz as "an idiot" telling tales "of sound and fury signifying nothing" by User:Elen of the Roads.

Uneven enforcement of "civility"
Lihaas was smeared as a "national socialist" at KW's RfC, with objections from only Geometry_guy; the Nazi-smearing was later endorsed at ANI, following KW's protest of uneven enforcement of civility: Lihaas had been blocked for writing "bitching and moaning" by MasterOfPuppets.

WTT scolded Kiefer.Wolfowitz, ""you were told by around 10 users... that pointing out that a user has a userbox... is not a smear"" ---neglecting to note
 * contrary opinions from Lihaas, KW, Geometry_guy, WP:NPA, etc..
 * involvement.

Hidden-archive template
WormThatTurned fabricated the misleading edit-summary ""This should be closed"" when he not only suggested closing the discussion but actually did close it.

WTT's edit misused the hidden-archive template, to which he attached the cover-up label ""User blocked for a week, tangential discussion closed - nothing left to see here]","

violating the prohibition against involved administrators applying the administrators-only hidden archival template.


 * Other apparently/allegedlycoverup misclosures.

Misfiliing
The RfC against BadgerDrink was improperly filed and should have been dismissed, according to CasLiber and Mkativerata.


 * Administrators like WormThatTurned certified the basis for the RfC/U.


 * Later, apparently an attempt to provide a valid certification was made. (Thanks, ThatPeskyCommoner! 17:58, 15 January 2012 (UTC))

"Psychological problems"
Snottywong wrote, "BadgerDrink "seems to go out of his way to be as insulting and outrageous as possible. I can only surmise why he feels the need to do this; it could be that he just gets a kick out of watching everyone freak out whenever he lets loose, it could be that he enjoys the copious attention he gets whenever he acts up ...". (emboldened)"

This imputation of psychological problems to BD was endorsed by WormThatTurned.

Retaliation versus fairness

 * Administrator WormThatTurned first dismissed concerns that the RfC was retaliation for Badger's opposition to a young RfA candidate because it discussed other issues, and
 * then WTT made the belated suggestion that the RfC should have been conducted after the RfA (!).

ArbCom member Casliber admonished WTT, suggesting that the RfC suffered from the appearance of retaliation and partisanship..

"Psychological problems" again
Soon afterword, WormThatTurned suggested that BadgerDrink and Kiefer.Wolfowitz had unsuccessful RfCs because of dysfunctional responses to stressors,.

Swearing is not a crime
Evidence that swearing is not a crime. As I hold admins to a higher standard than editors, this unsanctioned event is particularly revealing. Swearing by editors is not consistently sanctioned.

See also cunt, n. 2. "1932 George Orwell Coll. Ess. (1968) I. 88  'Tell him he's a cunt from me. Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2nd ed. 1989.

The issue is bullying, not swearing
Bullying by anyone on Wikipedia should be discouraged. There should be zero tolerance of bullying by admins or bureaucrats. A recent event, triggered by my ironic post on 's page followed by an almost immediate reversion by, led to a heated (but AGF both sides) duologue: ,, , ,, , ,, , , , , ,  and  The event was, and will remain, formally unreported though it should serve to illustrate the heavy handed attitude by some admins.

Malleus helps editors
Malleus helps editors, such as me for example and. [The following is from my submission to this arbitration/request/case December 2011] "I would classify my style as conciliatory though I can be robust when necessary such as  and . I first interacted with Malleus Fatuorum in June 2010  in a discussion which followed his edit  to an article I was working on; I have always found him incredibly courteous both then and now. On request, Malleus has always applied his considerable knowledge of the English language to correct my poor grasp of my own native tongue".

Malleus is a content editor
See for a table of edits by Malleus An inadmissible user-space table of edits by Malleus in the last month supporting supports the statement that the "net positive from Malleus' contribution outweigh his disagreeable nature" by showing that Malleus has edited 308 articles during the 30-day period 21 November 2011 through 20 December 2011. He first edited some of those articles in 2007. (Note: Even a permanent linked user-space submission is apparently not admissible here)

-- Senra (talk) 16:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Malleus Fatuorum
The volume of comment here makes it very difficult to respond to every point. I'll begin by making just one, which is that I've been rather astonished that a case entitled “Civility Enforcement” has centred on me rather than the general issue.

I'll avoid personalising the discussion by not focusing on the recent blocks that triggered this case, while addressing the basic issues as I see them. I reject the idea that any words are out of bounds, but I do recognise that they may sometimes be deployed in the wrong space. I do not accept that my use of the term “dishonest cunts” was in any way sexist or intended to be offensive; it was simply intended to make a point in a robust fashion, and it was made in WT:RFA, one of Wikipedia's bear pits. I regret having called Spitfire a “fucking cunt” in the aftermath of my indefinite block; that was unforgivable no matter what the provocation, and for that I apologise.

I emphatically reject the suggestion that the comment triggering my indefinite block was intended to be misogynistic. I never have and I never would make sexist or racist remarks about anyone; that would be completely unacceptable. I was unaware that there seems to be a cultural divide over the use of certain intensifiers, specifically that the word “cunt” was considered at least by some in the US to be misogynistic.

I would like to specifically address a proposal made by Elonka: “''Blocks are not intended as a revolving door. If an editor is disruptive, has been blocked multiple times, and is showing a pattern of just resuming the disruptive behavior upon their return, it is reasonable to block the editor's access indefinitely. The block should not be lifted until the editor acknowledges that they understand the problems that caused the blocks in the first place, and agrees to modify their behavior accordingly.''” If behavioural modification is demanded of editors then it should equally be demanded of administrators who issue blocks for the use of words such as “wikilawyer” or “sycophantic”. There is a clear and evident danger that the present civility policy can be and has been used to stifle dissent, not to prevent disruption. There is also clear evidence that some administrators focus on the perceived incivility of those they are hostile to while ignoring it in their friends and colleagues, as in the first block I linked to above,, which was prompted by this discussion.

With that in mind my hope is that the committee will focus on Wikipedia's poorly written and inconsistently applied civility policy, and its merging with the equally woolly WP:NPA; a policy that forbids one editor to comment on another is simply unworkable. If I can be helpful in providing more feedback for the arbitrators to further this goal, I would like some guidance as to 1) exactly what kind of evidence is sought, and 2) in how many words I am allowed to respond.

Evidence presented by Parrot of Doom
I'm not going to trawl through a load of diffs to find some "evidence" for this case, but if anyone wants to know more about Malleus's contributions here, and how most regular editors value his presence, just take a look through his talk page archives and examine the impressive number of sections where people ask for his help. And pay particular attention to the responses, which are usually "yes, of course I can help". They're often followed by very sincere thank-you messages, once Malleus has spent an hour or two rewriting what usually begins as a poor to average article on a subject he probably has little interest in, ending as something with GA or FA potential.

Maybe I should tot up the number of GAs and FAs achieved by those editors who'd rather see his back, and compare it to those who'd rather he stayed. I don't think I need to bother though, as the answer is obvious. The only people getting their knickers in a twist are over-zealous admins (and their sycophants) who make ineffective blocks on experienced editors, just because they don't like rude words. The rest of the world couldn't care less, and just wants decent articles to read. Parrot of Doom 21:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Georgewilliamherbert
Blank section to initialize / start work Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:24, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Evidence presented by J3Mrs
Malleus Fatuorum has contributed to many high-quality articles, some which are about contentious and controversial subjects, and consequently had to deal with disproportionate amounts of pov pushing, Wife selling (English custom), Donner Party and Manchester Martyrs spring immediately to mind. Few editors could have dealt with these subjects in as neutral a manner as he did, despite onslaughts from editors with axes to grind. Many editors may even have been driven from the project under similar circumstances. Malleus Fatuorum has an excellent grasp of the English language, its grammar and usage and is frequently asked for his opinion and help, but suffers attacks by editors whose language skills are poor. As far as I am aware, Malleus doesn't request editors be blocked or banned and doesn't run to the admin boards. He has been accused of misogeny, not least on this page, but how does that equate with the number of female editors he collaborates with, helps, or frequent his much watched talk page? Constructive criticism of wikipedia, done in good faith should be encouraged as one of the checks and balances of democratic governance.J3Mrs (talk) 11:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

English varieties have nothing to do with it
There seems to be a recurring theme throughout many statements in this matter that english varieties are part of the issue - particularly the difference between British and American english. I find this to be off base as none of the core individuals involved are American.


 * Malleus is Scottish (or half) but now living in Manchester (1, 2, 3)


 * Deb is Welsh (4)


 * Thumperward is Scottish (5)


 * John is Scottish (6)


 * Hawkeye7 is Australian (7)

If I have made a mistake concerning their on-wiki identifications then I apologize and welcome correction.

No American was involved in this process but for some reason several folks seem bent on shouldering the blame on Americans or their language sensitivities for the problem at hand. They allude to cultural differences being at the heart of the matter. Such arguments seem unfounded and completely without merit. I would like ArbCom and other members of the community to take into account that neither cultural nor national differences have anything to do with this case and disregard any such notion.

Evidence presented by WereSpielChequers
People, it's time to fork.

We can't continue whilst some consider that everyone has the right to equality before the rules, and others would exempt FA writers from civility. Some, though to his credit not Malleus, would even exempt vested contributors from NPA.

It really isn't sensible to have one community when some people's role models are Derek and Clive, and others think we will get more and better content by being nice.

This isn't just about Article creators snapping at POV warriors who have trampled their work, or merely admin abuse with non-admins exercising their rights to test that admins have thick skins. The diffs others are furnishing don't bear this out, and my own experience from RFA is that admin candidates often make their first acquaintance with certain vested contributors there rather than in a content dispute.

Forking need not be scary and extreme. Just mirror EN Wiki on another Wikimedia wiki creating WikipediaFrank and WikipediaCivil. With both within Single User Login so passwords and userrights are unchanged. In WikipediaFrank wp:civil would be a redlink. EN Wikipedia would point to the one with most editors. You could use wikitrust and post the "best" version from either wiki into En.Wikipedia; But having the site with more editors keep the current domain would be simpler, and as long as both used CCbySA you could transwiki good edits between them.

Yes there would be resource implications, but not unacceptable ones. Recently Sue Gardner said we need a new Wikipedia as Wikipedia is the new Nupedia. I had thought we'd fork over deletionism, but this is more urgent.

If that's too radical and instead you try and resolve things, then please:
 * Rule that the c word is incivil;
 * Issue wp:Koala, limiting the amount of extra protection per FA.
 * Remove the second mover advantage from unblockers.
 * Rule whether when judging consensus at AN/ I arguments such as "but they write FAs" should be ignored, accepted as mitigation, or accepted as justification for incivility
 * Due to uncertainty about the rules you could combine clarification with an amnesty for this incident.
 * Upbundle block and unblock of experienced editors to crats. 99.9% of blocks are uncontentious, including IP blocks and those of editors with <= 100 edits. If admins couldn't block or unblock editors with >100 edits the site won't break, the rare wait for a crat to block a compromised account would be more than balanced by reduced drama because only crats could block/unblock Koalas.

Worst of all worlds would be to try and hold the site together for a little bit longer whilst trying to settle this incident by apportioning bits of blame to all concerned.

Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Blocking policy are open to interpretation
Breaches of Civility are not always obvious. As Potter Stewart wrote of pornography, I can't tell you what it is, but "I know it when I see it". However, as the evidence shows, different editors see incivility differently. Guidance from ArbCom on what constitutes incivility, and in what circumstances, could help.

Similarly Blocking policy is fuzzy. Must a warning be given before a block? How much time can elapse between the warning and new behavior without requiring a new warning, or between blockable behavior and the block itself? What constitutes involvement for admins? Under what circumstances can an admin impose an indefinite block on an established user? These questions are interpreted differently by my fellow admins, and ArbCom's guidance could help answer them. Because civility and blocking are open to interpretation, and blocks are not applied consistently, an editor may have a substantial block history and yet not deserve many of those blocks, particularly an indef block. A long block record does not make someone automatically guilty.

Contributions matter
We are here to create an encyclopedia and readers come for content. We do take a user's contributions to that content into account. Those who provide no content, such as Vandalism-only accounts can be indef-blocked after very few edits. Editors here only to violate Neutral point of view or Conflict of interest or Spam are often quickly blocked too.

Established editors are more problematic. To me, the question always comes down to "what will most help the encyclopedia"? In the case of Malleus, I see an author who has negatives, but whose positives outweigh them. He is 11th in Featured article nominations (9th among active editors), very willing to help others improve content (like these copyedits to the recent FA Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)), or review an article at FAC (request to review here, review here, response here). Two more examples: when I posted a request for more eyes on an FAC in a POV/content dispute on WT:FAC here, Malleus was the only editor from FAC who commented - see here. Finally, this week he concisely answered a grammar question and suggested better phrasing here. I think these kind of actions are why Malleus has so many friends and defenders, despite his negatives.

That said, I do not see why blocking is the only option - if any editor is helpful in one area, but disruptive in others, why not impose a topic ban where there is bad behavior? If all we can do is block, will the last one unblocked turn out the lights? Ruhrfisch ><> &deg; &deg; 22:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Timeline

 * As far as I can see, the sequence of events layed out by Nobody Ent is correct and I will use this as the basis for my comments Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility_enforcement/Evidence

Delayed action
The situation would never have arisen if the blocking admin had properly assessed the situation. As far as I can see from all the evidence presented here, the matter had been dealt with when the statement was redacted after discussion with Malleus Fatuorum (MF). User_talk:Malleus_Fatuorum/Archives/2011/December. For clarity, the phrase "Like I give a flying F" can be loosely translated as "I don't care" or "I don't mind"

The subsequent delayed block, and the re-insertion of the offending statement, are (i) a further insult to the person who had first objected to the usage of the phrase, and (ii) a direct and personal attack on MF - if not, then the only other explanation can be a direct assault to re-ignite the situation to lead to this current endless debate.

The matter should have been dealt with by the already layed-out processes - Request to change the "offensive" statement, discussion with the user making the "offensive" statement, outcome (redacted - no further action;not redacted, escalate to next stage)

This is clearly, IMHO, against the core policy of non-punitive - "For example, even though it might have been justifiable to block someone a short time ago when they made inappropriate edits, it may no longer be justifiable to block them right now—in particular if the actions have not been repeated, or the conduct issues surrounding the actions have since been resolved."

Re-ignition after the event and after the situation had already been resolved
It is clear to me that MF will never get a fair hearing. This current situation is a direct result of re-ignition after the event. I commend the admin that removed the initial delayed block, the offending statement had already been redacted and a reasonable cooling off period had already passed before the block was placed.

IMHO the block was far too long, it seems more like the admin was "making a point", something which MF has been condemmned for. This type of knee jerk reaction is yet again a pointer that the unblock was indeed correct; though perhaps reduction may have been more appropriate the matter should have been dealt with by escalation of the processes rather than a retaliatory out-of-time block of any length.

Trench warfare, escalation and scapegoat
I would point out that I am aware that this has become an unacceptable trench warfare situation and has really negatively reflected how beaurocracy is twisted and stretched. The overwhelming picture is that of a scapegoat.

I would hope that anyone reading this who is uninvolved is as equally shocked as I am that someone could re-ignite, escalate and scapegoat an editor after a situation had already been resolved. This does not reflect well on any of us.

Other examples of controversial blocks related to civility

 * Please provide permanent links to discussions from 2011 only where an experienced editor (i.e., more than 3 months of editing and more than 500 non-automated edits) was blocked for violation of the civility policy (or related behavioural policies such as WP:NPA or WP:Harassment) and where the block was considered controversial. "Controversial" in this sense would include reversals of a block, blocks imposed after other dispute resolution methods (e.g., discussion with editor, warnings) appeared to have been successful in addressing the problem behaviour, situations which proceeded to other forms of dispute resolution such as RfC/U or a request for arbitration. For the purpose of this exercise, exclude users Malleus Fatuorum and TCO. Please sign any additions you make. Analysis of evidence will take place on the workshop page.
 * 1) From AN/Ia661:
 * 2) *diff of "incivility", diff of "incivility",
 * 3) *block "01:04, 3 January 2011 HJ Mitchell (Talk | contribs) blocked GTBacchus (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 12 hours (account creation disabled) ‎ (Personal attacks or harassment)", block rationale "Just today I blocked a non-admin for a personal attack that was arguably less severe than either of GTB's most-recent comments to Malleus so I've blocked for 12 hours, because there is no need or justification for such attacks. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:05, 3 January 2011 (UTC)"
 * 4) *resulting in this "controversial block" overturned by community, unblock, "03:45, 3 January 2011 Spartaz (Talk | contribs) unblocked GTBacchus (Talk | contribs) ‎ (per consensus at ANI this wasn't block worthy)" post AN/I sequels Fifelfoo (talk) 05:10, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) From AN/Ia664:
 * 6) *For these diffs: "edit warring" "personal attack", "edit summary contents"
 * 7) *block "02:36, 8 January 2011 2over0 (Talk | contribs) blocked Collect (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 1 week (account creation disabled) ‎ (Continued WP:edit warring on political topics and recurrent incivility.)", Block rationale available here. Additional block rationale at the AN/I archive search for "2/0 (cont.) 13:32, 8 January 2011 (UTC)"
 * 8) *Unblocked as a result of the discussion on AN/I noted above. The block and unblock analysed at depth there. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) *Based on a perceived uncivil comment at Steven Zhang's RfA, a thread at ANI was started, then closed in favour of an RfC/U.
 * 10) *Whilst the RfC/U was on going, ThatPeskyCommoner made a comment to Badger Drink which resulted in a personal attack and another ANI thread. Whilst the ANI thread was ongoing, Badger Drink was blocked by Scott MacDonald. This certainly caused much controversy at the open AN/I. Badger Drink requested an indefinte block and made comments which would force that solution.
 * 11) *DragonflySixtyseven increased Badger Drink's block to indefinite, WGFinley admonished ThatPeskyCommoner for behaviour which could appear to be harrassment and closed the AN/I thread. He has since withdrawn the admonishment.
 * 12) *The blocks have lead to a "barnstar of decapitation" for driving an editor off wikipedia, multiple threads on WGFinley's talk page (1, 2, 3), Scott Macdonald's talk page and the near retirement of ThatPeskyCommoner.   WormTT   &middot; &#32;(talk) 10:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For the full history of that, see here. Many people are clearly still in the dark as to what actually happened.  Pesky  ( talk  …stalk!) 06:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) From AN/Ia675: for this by admin for two weeks, reduced to 48 hours by AN/I discussion
 * 2) *AN/Ia678: Then 11:00, 6 March 2011 indef by admin; overturned at AN/I
 * 3) *Then 03:40, 16 March 2011 indef by Arbcom, consult User:Risker and User:Roger Davies per the block logs. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) From AN/Ia678 for this and overturned by AN/I consensus. Generalised bad block investigation on blocking admin occurred at AN/I, admin admitted to back blocks with the phrase "I F-ed up."  AN/I seemed satisfied by the apology. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:52, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) From ANa221 the civility blocking and unblocking of Ludwigs2 in relation to the AN thread linked. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:17, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) From ANa222 the largish Mexican-American War en-dash/hyphen proposed topic block civility issue; resulting in claimed further incivility. [Arbcom later injuncted this issue] Fifelfoo (talk) 04:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) From ANa224 relating to "Saying fuck alot", 2 weeks reduced to 48 hours. Both block rationales for the significantly differing time periods being civility related block rationales. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:38, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) From ANa226, this response to a threat causing this failed ban proposal
 * 9) *Then from discussion of escalating blocks. (This would also be all over AN/I) Fifelfoo (talk) 21:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) From ANa229 this rapid unblock. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:58, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) From AN/Ia729 the 3 December block reduced from 24 to 1 hours. Disputant opposed parties and neutral editors considered it unreasonable. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:40, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) (Controversial escalation from WQA to AN/I, due to request for disciplinary action) For this that caused a warning that caused this a failed WQA(a112) due to a demand for disciplinary action that went to AN/I(a728) where users were admonished for escalation, and WQA admonished for allowing escalation.  All told to cup-of-tea. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) (Controversial escalation from WQA to AN/I, due to request for disciplinary action) For this that caused a warning that caused this a failed WQA(a112) due to a demand for disciplinary action that went to AN/I(a728) where users were admonished for escalation, and WQA admonished for allowing escalation.  All told to cup-of-tea. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Other examples of unaddressed but blatant incivility

 * Please provide permanent links to discussions from 2011 only  illustrating obviously uncivil behaviour on the part of an experienced editor on an article talk page or on any page in the Wikipedia namespace appears to have gone completely unaddressed. (Note that I have specifically excluded user talk pages.) For the purpose of this exercise, exclude Malleus Fatuorum and TCO. Please verify that there is nothing on the talk page of the user before including. Please sign any additions you make. Analysis of evidence will take place on the workshop page.


 * 1) AN/Ia676, re Talk:Libya did not effectively resolve the civility issue. No administrator counselled the reported user, even though continuing incivil conduct (claimed accusations of lying) were reported.
 * 2) *The user reported was later reported in March the same day blocked by administrator action that did not see AN/I over incivility to an IP user for 48 hours, [Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive683#Violation_of_WP:CIVIL_on_the_talk_page_for_2011_Libyan_civil_war in a discussion at AN/I] that used previous AN/I notification as a warning!.  The blocking incivility amounted to a political slur on the IP user.  Fifelfoo (talk) 02:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) AN/Ia676 a civility slap fight with diffs over refactoring and claims that editors were liars resulting in no discernable administrator action, including user:talks. Not even a cup of tea suggestion. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:45, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) AN/Ia677 being an attempt to impose a community civility sanction that "In terms of arguments presented, however, there is a strong trend. A majority of the opposes indicated that they were opposing on grounds of futility rather than truly opposing the sanction. That is significant and should be noted and considered in closing." Fifelfoo (talk) 03:09, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) AN/Ia678 contains this civility slap-fight in the context of a claim of an admin going rogue on consensus. Closed as civility issues made continued discussion of the claimed administrator incident unviable ("Too much off-topic bashing going on here to actually consider the issue at hand any further."). Fifelfoo (talk) 03:56, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) ANa224's extensive and failed discussion of NFCC and complex civility issues, the civility portion being cup-of-tea'd at best, hands in the air at worst later went to Arbcom Fifelfoo (talk) 04:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) . I am not aware of any admin response.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) WQA thread started by  and triggered by alleged incivility, including this comment from . At least one admin saw the thread.  responded in the thread on its opening day. The discussion was closed by  11 days after opening with this comment -- Senra (talk) 16:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) ANa226 being a discussion on RFC/U rules involving gonad related inferences cast around a user who is touchy about it due to surviving gonad cancer, and who'd expressed a previous preference against such expressions. At least one commenter questioned why this had occurred.  Even cups of tea were not suggested. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:49, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) ANa226 being a discussion about a user frustration incident on their own talk page that was escalated past a cup-of-tea, and past WQA because of its egregiousness; but, resolved by attending to the underlying issue. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:49, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) ANa228 as a result of WQA (archive 112) (including this, "Can you please both step back? Lugnuts, we understand you felt annoyed by the message. Ankitbhatt, we understand that you acted with the best of intentions. Now you can both shut the fuck up. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:24, 13 November 2011 (UTC)").
 * 12) *WQAa112 (Post September) failed at "persuasion, reason and community support" due to an administrator structuring the discussion as disciplinary and telling the involved parties to shut the fuck up; "No admin action necessary, and discussion does not seem to lead to de-escalation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:25, 13 November 2011 (UTC)" and "Can you please both step back? Lugnuts, we understand you felt annoyed by the message. Ankitbhatt, we understand that you acted with the best of intentions. Now you can both shut the fuck up. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:24, 13 November 2011 (UTC)"
 * 13) *See also: AN/Ia726 for which I cannot find the "duplicate report," because its at AN not AN/I and nobody bothers to record these things correctly.
 * 14) *No action was taken against the administrator for: Improperly conducting themselves on WQA; incivility. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:44, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) this from a failed WQA from a bounced AN; also, from the same WQA archive; this from a bounced WQA that went to AN/I where a user was blocked for 24 hours, thence upped to 48. Then.  Then an indef down to 1 week.  Then  This isn't effective civility maintenance. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) No closure around this appears to have occurred Fifelfoo (talk) 01:22, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) Requests_for_comment/Timneu22 RFC/U failed: editor retired. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) Requests_for_comment/Bidgee RFC/U failed: editor retired. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) Requests_for_comment/Paralympiakos RFC/U failed: editor semi-retired. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 20) Requests_for_comment/Bugapi RFC/U failed: editor indeffed over other matters. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 21) Requests_for_comment/Corbridge RFC/U failed: editor retired, indeffed over socking later. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 22) Requests_for_comment/Sempi RFC/U failed: editor retired, returned to article talk pages late in 2011 without further conduct around RFC/U issues. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 23) Requests_for_comment/Alexsautographs RFC/U failed: failure to develop consensus.
 * 24) Requests_for_comment/Objectivist RFC/U failed: indeffed Fifelfoo (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 25) Requests_for_comment/Badger_Drink RFC/U failed: controversially indeffed at [their own request at] AN/I as noted elsewhere in this section. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC) corrected at: Fifelfoo (talk) 07:34, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: Badger Drink refused to participate in the RfC/U and the indef. was at his own request, while under an initial 24-hour block for a personal attack in an edit summary. Pesky  ( talk  …stalk!) 07:16, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) WQAa97 no attempt at "persuasion, reason, and community support" Fifelfoo (talk) 04:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Wikiquette_assistance/archive98 failed to receive "persuasian, reason, and community support" and resolved by unconnected blocking of filer Fifelfoo (talk) 05:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Wikiquette_assistance/archive98 no attempt at "persuasion, reason, and community support" despite involved parties request for this. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Wikiquette_assistance/archive98 no attempt at "persuasion, reason, and community support" due to a) initial retirement, b) WQA editor disinterest. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Wikiquette_assistance/archive99 as a failed attempt to block, and as a deliberate unwillingness to enter into "persuasion, reason, and community support" at WQA, but, seemingly resolved by a talk page message. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Wikiquette_assistance/archive99 containing no response by WQA editors. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Wikiquette_assistance/archive100 failed to address conduct. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:55, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) AN/Ia682 resolved, excepting civility components that were largely unaddressed. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Lecen - Several times other editors told Lecen to focus on productive comments, but his personal attacks were not, to my knowledge, ever addressed, not brought to ANI, not reprimanded
 * 10) *
 * 11) * Rant came after an editor requested that the user disengage.
 * 12) * (badgering)
 * 13) * Assuming bad faith
 * 14) * "Please, be mature" directed at another editor
 * 15) * see edit summary
 * Karanacs (talk) 16:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) WQAa112 (Post September), and WQAa112 (Post September) no attempt at "persuasion, reason and community support" as unattended. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:44, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) WQAa112 (Post September) discussed, cup-of-tea'd, failed as stuck. User apparently refused to escalate to disciplinary forums. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:44, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Arb Requests for Enforcement comment "This is pure sycophancy...Enjoy your circle jerk" very similar to what got Malleus blocked in June 2009. Karanacs (talk) 16:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Comment made at RfA and no one mentioned it Karanacs (talk) 17:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) MF blocked for similar comments in Oct 2010. Karanacs (talk) 17:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) edit summary Karanacs (talk) 17:10, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) comment at RFA Karanacs (talk) 17:36, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) comment at RFA; later moved to Talk. Karanacs (talk) 18:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Method of referring to user Karanacs (talk) 18:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) In January 2011 (beginning late December) QuackGuru persistently and obviously falsely accused Ludwigs2 of inappropriate actions related to removing QG's OR per talk page consensus.  In the context of an RfC in March, with which L2 tried to finally address the problem, QG resumed this behaviour. Due to the extreme disruption, L2 reported QG to ANI, providing 5 diffs of incivility by QG. Due to the dynamic I described in  before Arbcom, Ludwigs2 (not QuackGuru) was blocked, then unblocked. By the simple expedient of being AWOL during the case, QuackGuru managed to be not even mentioned in the finding. Shortly later he resumed editing until he got a 1-year pseudoscience topic ban for similar behaviour in a different area. Hans Adler 20:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) WQAa111. Editor finds himself mobbed for expressing reasonable concerns. Main mobster Tarc denies the personal attacks, and an admin (Rklawton) agrees. Mobbing continues at WQA with participation by 3 admins (Guerillero, Kww, Franamax). Diffs used against the editor are not comparable to what he had to endure, and are from reactions to the attacks. Mobbing continues, and at one point, admin Resolute attacks the editor for daring to agree with Resolute's compromise proposal. Hans Adler 20:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) editor calls MF petty, pointy, and acting in bad faith for bringing a GA Review that was successful. continues with more vitriol .  Several administrators involved in/watching the discussion.  No warnings, etc. found. Karanacs (talk) 21:36, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Requests_for_comment/Kiefer.Wolfowitz RFC/U failed: As part of his evidence it is clear Kiefer.Wolfowitz is still disgruntled regarding the RfC, which was not successful and was addressing civility amongst other issues.  WormTT   &middot; &#32;(talk) 21:57, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) Requests_for_comment/Kiefer.Wolfowitz RFC/U failed: As documented in the evidence section, WTT & Demiurge1000's RfC against me followed a previous RfC-formatted discussion that WormThatTurned quit, after having been summoned to AN by his friend Demiurge1000; this RfC-discussion and a previous ANI had the appearance of retaliation for my opposing a candidate at RfA. At the RfC proper, the RfA agenda appeared when WTT and Demiurg1000 tried to have me agree to a gag order, stopping me from writing an opposition without a prior discussion with an uninvolved editor. The RfC failed to intimidate me from complaining about unqualified or child (or both) RfA candidates. Kiefer .Wolfowitz 22:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) Wikiipedia:Requests_for_comment/BadgerDrink RfC/U succeeded in hounding an editor until he lost his temper and asked for an indefinite block, driving him off the project. CasLiber admonished WTT for his one-sided participation only criticizing BadgerDrink, neglecting context, ignoring incivility and personal attacks against BadgerDrink, etc. Kiefer .Wolfowitz 22:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) July 2011 comments by : User talk:SandyGeorgia/arch83. Extensive name-calling, despite repeated requests to tone it down. --Elonka 17:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) Incivility from administrator  and :  --Elonka 18:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) Gender-based attack by . --Elonka 18:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) Egregious assault on an editor not even active . Struck by admin Franamax without warning or block . Commented on by admin Elonka without warning or block . Eventually editor realized he was over the line and apologized . Hipocrite (talk) 15:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 20) GTBacchus' closing comments Risker (talk) 00:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Review of blocks on Malleus Fatuorum
Please proceed to this separate evidence page to provide links to discussions that relate to the multiple blocks applied to Malleus Fatuorum. Include only links. Analysis of the information will take place on the workshop page.

An Old RfC
Have to add this, but apparently I co-certified a now restored RfC against Malleus back in March 2008. To my knowledge, this is the only RfC brought against MF. I think the RfC is quite informative when you look at my statement from 4 years ago.

First ever block
My analysis of the why I unblocked ishere. In short---32 hours after a comment, an offended admin issued a warning. 8 hours later, after a terse response, said involved admin blocked. I unblocked him, but noted on his page, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Malleus_Fatuorum&diff=prev&oldid=214781614 Blocks for civility are to be used to stop ongoing civility problems, not as a punishment for past transgressions. If you think something needs to be done... I think a strong case could be made against MF]---but I had to unblock because it was SO bad. I've found reading theblock history page interesting that several blocks on MF were performed by involved admins (one was then blocked.) In most individual case(s) the offense is minor and doesn't substantiate a block. Often there are suggestions from supporters and detractors to start an RfCU. Nobody has.

Makes a positive contribution to wikipedia
Not going to dwell on the obvious positive contribution in the form of FA and GA work. He is a regular at both areas. Nor will I deny that Malleus can be an ass---I've not hidden that sentiment from him. That being said, take away his contributions to the FA and GA process and you still have a beneficial user to the project. Yes, he has ruffled a few feathers and has more than one petty fued with several established users. I used to be fairly active in the RfA process. One of the areas that I looked at closely was their talk page. Did people come to them seeking advice/help? Were they respected by the community? So take a looked at user space, here's some info on Malleus':

I'm not motivated enough to count the rest of the year, but you get the point.
 * January 2011: 17 sections of thanks, 18 sections seeking help
 * February2011: 2 of thanks, 20 seeking help
 * March2011: 6 of thanks, 18 seeking help
 * April2011: 9 of thanks, 13 seeking help
 * May2011: 13 of thanks, 11 seeking help
 * June2011: 5 of thanks, 15 seeking help

Interpretation of evidence
People who do not make positive contributions to the project do not have the accolades and request Malleus does. Malleus is unique because his influence isn't confined to one or two silos---like most users---he will help with most articles as long as somebody wants to improve it. Would I like to see an improvement in his civility? Yes. But he is a benefit to the community. I point out my unblocking comments from 4 years ago to demonstrate that I've had a 160 degree change in perspective on Malleus (not quite 180).--- Balloonman  Poppa Balloon 07:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidence presented by ASCIIn2Bme
Kiefer.Wolfowitz likes to complain about civility double standards. To the point where he got blocked for it: And you may want to peruse his RfC. I admit he manages to make me chuckle sometimes with his witty impoliteness, like the barnstar of decapitation mentioned above. If only all our uncivil editors had such a sense of humor!

Evidence presented by User:Drmies
I have little to add that hasn't been said before. I'm going to refrain from diffs since this comes late in the game and there's plenty of them already.

Malleus is a quality editor
This is undisputed. He makes quality edits, and he improves our enterprise significantly.

Malleus is sharp and usually correct...
...certainly in matters of content, and what I find commendable is his lack of adherence to dogma. He has questioned himself and can be proven wrong. The Wife Selling talk page is an indication of that, IMO. He can be abrasive, but not for personal reasons, as far as I am able to judge--it seems to be reserved for editors who stubbornly persist in being incorrect and for administrators whose mop has gotten to their heads.

Malleus makes other people better editors
I present myself as evidence. About a year ago I was working on getting The Land of Green Plums up to GA status (my first) (on a book you all should read), and this is what he did, patiently and painstakingly. Working with him on Green children of Woolpit, a fave topic of his, was a great learning experience for me, and he has given me the confidence to write more than little DYK stubs. Further evidence from other editors is found on his talk page, or, differentially and numerically, in the section by Balloonman, above.

His block record evidences his value more than his supposed disruptiveness
Mind you, when I first came to this joint and started looking at ANI, I thought also that he was attracted too much to drama. I'm sure he thought I was a jerk; I probably was. But his blocks are generally deemed to be incorrect and are undone, for the right reasons (evidence presented by others, elsewhere). I do not believe there is such a large camp of sycophants; I rather believe there are a few admins willing to stick their necks out for what is right. I have yet to be one of those, but (partly) blame my in-laws being at my house over the Christmas holiday when MF got indef-blocked. That there are also admins who seem to jump at the chance of blocking him is a personal observation, but it is one I share with others.

Is ANI worse than Malleus?
I applied the "birthday bingo" random sample test to WP:ANI. In over 200 edits there was much strong feeling, but it was directed at edits not editors. The only edit comparable to what I linked for Malleus (here and here) was this one, which drew an immediate block. And no unblock. Art LaPella (talk) 01:22, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't explain it, but he's a good egg
My take on Malleus is that he generally comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. I like that. He seems to get in the most trouble for the former. I haven't reviewed every example on this page, but my observations of Malleus are that his sharp comments usually fall into one of three categories: 1) Afflicting the comfortable, i.e. being snarky at people who have admin credentials, per the "suicide by admin" comment above,   2)  Generalized harmless curmudgeonly-ness, if that's a word. (Malleus will undoubtably tell me that it isn't) or 3) An attempt to make people not get too high and mighty when they are, in fact, in danger of getting too high and mighty.  Put differently, if Malleus called me a f---ing c---, I'd sort of laugh and say, "oh that's just Malleus, and I hate to admit that he's right again" while if another editor called me the same, I'd probably file an ANI and demand an immediate civility block.  I absolutely cannot explain why that is; and, I have no clue how to reach a decision on civility for overall WP users, either, (generally, being an American and female, I find the c-word highly offensive) but if someone can explain this, we will be on to something.  Maybe just declare that Malleus is the exception that proves the rule, put Pesky or someone of similar maturity and British-ness in charge of dialing him back when he might slip up and actually be acting like a, well, the c-word, and call it good. Every community needs a few curmudgeons and other characters. Montanabw (talk) 05:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:ClemRutter
This is more a statement than an forensic attempt to drill down into logs and archives: the sort of activity that I am sure that Malleus is opposed to.

More attention should be spent on creating an encyclopedia than navel gazing
It is galling in the extreme to see good editors, being promoted to admins only to spend their time inhibiting content producers, and throwing around obscure policies and protocols to trip up the unwary. I can never understand the glee of the deletionistas- or the delicate little souls who wilt when a normal word is deemed by them to be uncivil. Malleus, can be relied upon to support the newby and act as their champion against those who take their status too seriously. He is St George fighting the dragons of pomposity and hypocracy. Equally important is that his edits are the models of good practice and correctness- if you want to see how to write an FA on any topic then you can model it on  Malleus' work.

If you don't like the heat get out of the kitchen
Malleus is helpful when approached by the general user.If savaged byone who should know better his language becomes more direct. The moral is simple, editors who want a fight should not be surprised. Direct language is the norm in industrial situation and in senior common rooms and the words used vary with location, educational achievement and social class. In 1978 I took some innercity kids hostelling 50 miles to an area where I had some very upper crust friends. The horror of the city kids, when a lady (yes, nobility) said to her angelic blue eyed eight year old daughter: "Harriet darling, do stop being such a cunt to your sister and play nicely ". Then on arriving back in the city we were greeted by the grateful parents. One saying : "Come here you dozy cunt, what have you forgotten. Ya didn't fuck them teachers around none, did ya?" In one the word was used as a simple euphemism for "mild bullying", and the other is was a term of endearment!. We chose the hostel carefully as that warden could cope with the culture shock of our kids. We chose to close our ears to language that we didn't personally use. If admins are going to make irritating and often erroneous interventions then they need to be able to cope with direct language spoken in any forms.--ClemRutter (talk) 23:33, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Malleus should be considered a catalyst for this case, not the subject of it
Jclemens made clear that acceptance was due to wheel-warring. AGK clearly stated that s/he did not consider Malleus's own conduct to be an Arbcom matter. Risker was that way inclined too, before (as best I can tell) deciding that civility in general needs to be looked at due to its long term divisiveness. Casliber made clear that the scope was to determine how to handle civility going forward; Roger Davies concurred. SilkTork's comment is a bit harder to generalise. My reading of it was that the wheel warring was the primary reason to accept; the implication of the rest is essentially that s/he agrees with Casliber too. Kirill, Elen, Coren and Xeno recused, while Newyorkbrad was leaning towards recusing if the case focussed on Malleus. That's 11 of a possible 16 arbs, if my assumption that the two other pro tempore arbs will not participate further proves correct. It is thus very difficult to see a justification for Arbcom sanctioning Malleus for incidents in the past, though it goes without saying that any decisions made on civility and enforcement would apply to Malleus going forward. —WFC— 03:00, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

This case should lay down markers for all users going forward, not hand out punishments looking backward
I would apply this principle to both Malleus and the admins involved. This approach need not rule out admonishments, or warnings that repeats of specific actions will result in future sanctions. —WFC— 03:00, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Hydroxonium
This evidence is not focused on specific incidents, but on the general issue of civility, how it is dealt with and its importance to Wikipedia in general.

Wikipedia is a volunteer run project
Obvious, but I'll add this just in case.

Civility is the core issue
As noted by the title of this case.

The general public views Wikipedia as hostile
News articles and editorials mention Wikipedia's problems with hostility and civility in general.
 * How I fell in love with Wikipedia, "There are some people on Wikipedia now who are just bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking people's work" - Nicholson Baker, The Guardian
 * Bullypedia, A Wikipedian Who’s Tired of Getting Beat Up, "Between the learning curve of Wikipedia culture, the Wikipedia UI and the tolerance of some of its bullies for people not already steeped in that culture … who has time for this?" - Gene McKenna, Travel Industry
 * Wikipedia Founder Decries Hostility Online, "Discussing online civility and digital discourse, the creators of Wikipedia and CiviliNation emphasized the importance of a healthy online culture that will discourage harassment" - Hoya Staff Writer, The Hoya
 * Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages, "Wikipedia is becoming a more hostile environment" - Felipe Ortega, Wall Street Journal
 * Academic studies about Wikipedia, "The study finds that there are contributors who consistently and successfully violate policy without sanction" - Community, consensus, coercion, control (2007)
 * Former Contributors Survey Results

Wikipedia has been losing contributors
Wikipedia has been losing contributors and it's a major concern to the Wikimedia Foundation.
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2012-01-02/Interview

The community has attempted to deal with the civility issue
For the last few years, the community has made multiple attempts to deal with civility problems in many different ways.
 * strategy:Proposal:Be nice
 * strategy:Proposal:Be More Inclusive and Friendly to Newbies
 * Requests for comment/new users
 * Civility/Poll
 * Task force/Community Health
 * strategy:Category:Proposals for reducing in-fighting

Wikipedia is viewed as an example to be emulated
Wikipedia is a top website that the media and general public view as a standard for others to emulate.
 * We've seen America's vitriol. Now let's salute Wikipedia, a US pioneer of global civility, "it is good to be able to celebrate an American invention which, for all its faults, tries to spread around the world a combination of unpaid idealism, knowledge and stubborn civility." - Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian

Wikipedia is responsible for its public image
In the same way Wikipedia is responsible for the quality of its content, it is also responsible for its public image.

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration. - Hydroxonium (T•C• [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&limit=1&username=Hydroxonium V] ) 19:34, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Failure to observe WP:AGF catalyses many if not most civility issues
I have waited until quite late in this process to put evidence forward, as my own is based on the diffs provided by others. I have spent dozens of hours analysing the instances of where our processes have failed, to pinpoint why they have failed. Having done so, I have noticed that in almost every instance part, and in most cases a large part, of the failure is directly or indirectly attributable to a failure to assume good faith. If other editors read through the cases which have been highlighted as problematical, (I suggest printing out and using a highlighter pen), and highlight every instance of a failure to assume good faith on the part of any editor involved or commenting, you will find all these cases littered with them. If you then remove every comment or assumption which sprang from a failure to assume good faith about another editor's motives, thoughts, mental or emotional state and driving forces, the picture of what would have happened is very, very different from the actual outcome. This is an exercise well worth doing.

For example, this outside view by Cardamon sprang from a bad-faith (and incorrect) assumption about the motives for filing the RfC/U. If one removes that non-AGF view, the entire section goes. Another example, in BD's complaint about me to AN/I, his opening words sprang again from the exact same bad-faith assumption about my motives, which a number of other editors then followed and piled-on. Without the original bad-faith (mistaken) assumption, and the assuming-bad-faith pile-on, there would have been no (apparent) case.

The (in most cases) assuming-bad-faith accusations of IRC-Cabalism are interesting. Having been labelled as an "IRC-buddy" in the first place, the application of a little analytical time alone should have shown that the RfC/U which I filed could not possibly have been "cooked up in IRC". Reason: I made a heap of mistakes due to total inexperience, and the fact that it was "woefully presented" (not sure of the exact quote here) and the "procedural objections" are probably the most blindingly obvious evidence that I, personally, wasn't "cooking anything up" in IRC or the case, with the input of the hypothetical IRC Cabal, would have been procedurally correct and not woefully presented. Common sense? The RfC/U itself is clear evidence that it was "all my own work" (and thus full of mistakes from an RfC newbie).

Associated point: the process of filing an RfC/U is as horrendously complicated and stress-inducing as attempting to drive around Spaghetti junction with a blindfolded navigator, and no map, SatNav or road signs. Much work needs to be done on this.

Evidence presented by {your user name}
before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.